A Yiddish / Hiberno-English Dictionary

178 | Articles & Essays

A Yiddish / Hiberno-English Dictionary

Gey kakken oyf in yam (literally, ‘Go shit in the ocean’) – Feck off

Gonif – Cute (‘crook’)

by Sam Slote

Klutz – Eejit ( ‘a clumsy person’)

Mazik – Chisler (‘a swift or mischievous child’)

Mensch – Legend or Gobshite (one of few terms of endearment in Yiddish; mostly used in an ironic sense).

Menuval – Gobshite (‘a disgusting person’)

Meshuggeneh – Eejit (from the adjective meshugge, ‘crazy’)

Momzer – Gobshite (literally, ‘a bastard’; figuratively, ‘an untrustworthy person’)

Moyshe Pupik – Eejit (literally, ‘Moses bellybutton’; figuratively, ‘a jerk’)

Nebech (in American Yiddish, Nebbish) – Eejit (‘To define a nebech simply as an unlucky man is to miss the many nuances, from pity to contempt, the word affords’, Rosten, p. 261)

Nishtgutnik (in American Yiddish, No-goodnik) – Dosser (the opposite of alrightnik)

Noodge – Gobshite (from the verb nudzh, ‘to bore’)

Nudnik – Eejit (literally, ‘a pest’)

Paskudnyak – Feckin’ Gobshite (‘nasty, odious, contemptible’; ‘one of the most greasily graphic’ words in Yiddish, Rosten, p. 282)

Putz – Gobshite (literally, ‘penis’, although rarely used in the literal sense. In 1998 thensenator Al D’Amato was roundly excoriated for calling his opponent Chuck Schumer a ‘putz’)

Schlemazel – Eejit ( ‘un unlucky person’; possibly the English slang word shemozzle – ‘an uproar, confusion’ – is derivative)

I am indebted to Leo Rosten’s literally indispensible The Joys of Yiddish, New York: McGraw Hill, 1968.

Schlemiel – Eejit (‘an unlucky person’; the most generic Yiddish insult. ‘The schlemiel trips and knocks down the shlemazel; and the nebech repairs the schlemazel’s glasses’, Rosten, p. 345)

Schlepp (in American Yiddish, Schlepper) – Eejit (‘a clumsy person’; from the German, schleppen, ‘to drag’)

Schlub – Eejit ( ‘an ill-mannered person’; as in the wonderful expression, ‘He acts like a schlub, that schlub’, Rosten, p. 451)

Schmegegge – Eejit (‘I think of schmegegge as a cross between a schlemazel and a schlemiel – or even between a nudnik and a nebech’, Rosten, p. 354. Yiddish is all about nuance.)

Schmendrick – Ballbag (‘a kind of schlemiel – but weak and thin’, Rosten, p. 354; also has the sense of ‘penis’, and when used by women the intent is to deride by diminutising.)

Schmo – Eejit (American Yiddish euphemism for schmuck, but less insulting)

Schmuck – Feckin’ Gobshite (literally, ‘penis’; ‘Never utter schmuck lightly, or in the presence of women and children’, Rosten, p. 356. From the German Schmuck, ‘jewelry’; applied to the male genitalia in an analogous manner to the expression ‘the family jewels’)

Schnook – Eejit (American Yiddish euphemism for schmuck, but less insulting; as in the Dublin rhyming slang for the statue of Oliver Goldsmith at Trinity’s front gate, ‘The schnook with the book’.)

Schnorrer – Gobshite (‘an impudent indigent’; ‘The schnorrer was not a run-of-themill mendicant. […] He did nor so much ask for alms as claim them’, Rosten, p. 360)

Tipesh – Eejit (‘an idiot’; from the Hebrew)

Vantz – Eejit (literally, ‘bedbug’)

Yold – Culchie

Yutz – Eejit (‘a foolish or useless person’)